Abstract
The question raised by Cheney and Christensen (2001) as to “what a non-Western, nonmanagerial
and non-rationalist form of public relations will look like” (p.182), together with
the call made by Gregory (2014) for public relations practitioners (PRPs) to be active social
change agents, motivated this paper. The aim of this research is to follow a culture-centred
approach and apply the circuit of culture (Curtin & Gaither, 2005) to investigate the
meanings that young people (aged 18 to 34), as cultural intermediaries, ascribe to their
participation in a digital empowerment project implemented by the City of Johannesburg,
South Africa. This research forms part of a larger, ongoing multi-disciplinary research
project...